Let’s start with a riddle: can you name a person who has read every book, every journal, conducted every known experiment, and is knowledgeable about every single patent prosecution / litigation in the world? The answer? A “skilled person in the art.” This person is also known as a “person having ordinary skill in the art”, “a person of ordinary skill”, “person having ordinary skill in the art”, “PHOSITA”, “POS”, or simply, “a skilled person.” The skilled person in the art is a fictional legal entity, one who widely serves as a reference standard in patent laws around the world for evaluating inventiveness/obviousness. This skilled person also appears in patent…
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How Far Can an Employer Reach to Own Employee-made “Service Inventions”?
2019 China’s Top 50 Representative IP Cases Shenzhen Weibang Technology Co. Ltd v. Li Jianyi & Shenzhen Yuancheng Intelligence Equipment Co. Ltd (2019最高法民申6342号) Each year in China there are hundreds of disputes over patent ownership. A significant part of them are related to “Service Inventions”, which are defined in Article 6 of the Chinese Patent Law as any invention made by an employee (1) in the course of performing the employee’s duties or (2) mainly by using the materials or technical means of the employer. Under Chinese patent law, these inventions automatically belong to the employer. No separate assignment or employment agreement needs to be in place. Article 12 of…
